FULHAM captain Danny Murphy has pointed the finger of blame for the rash of dangerous tackles at the managers of Stoke, Wolves and Blackburn for sending out their players too pumped up.

Bobby Zamora, the Fulham striker, suffered a broken leg in a challenge by Wolves’ Karl Henry and the same player was fined two weeks’ wages by his club after another savage tackle on Wigan’s Jordi Gomez.

Murphy called some tackles “ridiculous” and “brainless” and said managers had to take responsibility.

Murphy said: “Your manager dictates what your players do and how you behave.

“You get managers who are sending their teams out to stop other teams playing, which is happening more and more – the Stokes, Blackburns, Wolves.

“They can say it’s effective and they have got to win games but the fact is the managers are sending out their players so pumped up there is inevitably going to be problems.

“Every ship has a captain and that’s the manager who is in charge.”

Murphy said there should be tougher sanctions for dangerous tackles – especially for repeat offenders.

He added: “The pace in which some players go into tackles now is ridiculous. There’s no brains involved in the players who are doing that.”